By David Heitmiller

Are you suffering from post holiday letdown? Overspent? Overcome by debt? Starved for time? Overstuffed with stuff? Are you working harder but still falling behind? Hate your job but afraid to make a change? Think there should be more to life?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, you're not alone. Consumers today owe $541 billion on their credit cards, double what it was in 1990. The number of bankruptcy filings increased by five times to 1.35 million from 1980 to 1999. In the fall of 1998, the household savings rate in the United States registered below zero, while only five years earlier it was at 6%. Statistics like these may explain why, despite our wealth of material possessions, fewer Americans consider themselves happy today than they did forty years ago!

Maybe 2007 is the year to make a "new life's” resolution instead of the traditional quickly forgotten “new year’s” resolution. That’s what we did exactly 16 years ago in January 1991. Over the next three years we rearranged our priorities, reduced our spending and built our savings. Our “new life” began in January of 1994 when David (then age 48) left his high stress, low reward job in the corporate world to pursue his life-long dreams. After completing a graduate degree in 1995, Jacque (then age 45) gave up the idea of a career in academia and joined David in the slow lane.

Although we now live on about one third of our former salaries, pay for our own health insurance and own considerably less stuff than we used to, life couldn’t be better. How can that be? First we figured out what was enough for us. Yes, contrary to popular belief, more is not necessarily better. “Enough” is a balance point where expenditures and possessions bring true fulfillment and satisfaction instead of a momentary thrill, a large bill and something more to dust and insure. Using the ideas found in the best-selling book, Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and the late Joe Dominguez (Penguin, 1999), we discovered that much of our income was spent on things and activities that weren’t important to us. We decided that we wanted our lives to amount to more than material acquisition and an impressive job title. We also realized overconsumption of the world’s resources is a serious problem and that spending and using less not only improved our personal financial situation, but also helped the environment.

We have been surprised at how having less has made us happier. Our possessions no longer own us. We were able to get off the work and spend treadmill. Instead of suffering from the time famine, we now have more time for our friends, families and each other. We no longer measure our success with a monetary yardstick or our possessions by what our neighbors or our “friends” on TV own. By living simply our spending reflects our values. We are now involved in our community, giving back our time through volunteer work. We were so sure that we had enough that when we wrote Getting a Life, we decided to donate 97% of the proceeds to non-profit organizations that help other people find more authentic and sustainable ways of living. (see Where Did the Money Go.)

We also discovered we were not alone and that people from many backgrounds and economic situations were joining us as part of a growing “voluntary simplicity” movement. Our experience in a local voluntary simplicity study circle and the interviews we did all over the country for our book have convinced us that simplifying brings benefits to people from all walks of life. People in debt, people with kids, people with modest incomes, young people just starting out, as well as worn-out fast trackers -- all have found life to be more meaningful when they use their values and a bigger life picture as a guide when they spend money.

So how do you make your “new life’s” resolution a reality? Start where you are, debts and all. Begin by tracking your income and spending in detail. Where does it come from and where does it all go? People who follow the program in Your Money or Your Life find that doing this step alone reduces their spending by 20 to 25%! Consult a life expectancy table to see how much time you might have left. What do you really want to get out of those years? Are you on a path to get there? Lastly, how do you want to be remembered when you’re gone? Will your 2007 resolutions bring you a life with the most toys or one with the most joys?

© 2007 David A. Heitmiller